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The YardBarker

Metronome Magazine

Brian Owens - editor
December 09, 2013

After watching Koji Uehara mow down the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series game after game, Boston singer songwriter-guitarist Jerry Velona started singing "Uuuueee Uehara" ala' the classic 50's and 60's hit tune "Sea Cruise". After singing it to the TV for a few weeks, Velona decided to put down some lyrics and got together with his music collaborator Larry Luddecke to record the parody. He included friends and fellow Sox fanatics Paul Ahlstrand (saxes), Anthony Vitti (bass) and Paul Lenart (guitar) on the track. Larry Luddecke played piano and engineered and mixed and Velona sang and played drums. Velona's son Chris Velona, an accomplished producer and director of photography threw together a video. They send the song to Mike Adams and WEEI who immediately began playing it and posted it on his website... Soon Joe Castiglione heard the tune and liked it and began using it on the game broadcast when Koji would enter the game. Joe told a Japanese sportswriter for Sports Nippon (about) the songand Jerry Velona did an interview which ended up running in the paper...

Meanwhile the You Tube video started blowing up and at most recent count there are over 200,000 hits (editor's note - the actual number of hits is a little over 161,000 as of this writing) - more than half from Japan. The video was embedded all over the place including BarStool sports, MLB Fan Cave and others. Lastly, Velona did an interview with the Tokyo Broadcasting system at Fenway Park the night the Red Sox won game 6. He performed the song near Landsdowne Street. It got picked up by WBUR's "scenes from Fenway".

Velona's tune is called "Koji on the Mound" and is available for download at CDBaby.com and all the usual download sites. Jerry is currently working on some new material for a full-length release due out sometime in 2014. Velona has graced the cover of Metronome Magazine in April 2010 and again in February 2013.